Mnemosyne Background
1195-1199, Early Childhood Born to a distant branch of a very minor noble family, Melisende spent her formative childhood in the Kentish countryside. Her parents served the local lord and lived - perhaps even still do - in his manor and she was raised with the other children. However, even at at a tender age she had a tendency to see strange things which others could not. 1200-1203, Later Life While her parents imaged her life to be one in which she might hopefully make a good marriage or become a lady-in-waiting and set about instilling in her the right skills, Melisende proved to be a somewhat wild child. Prefering to go swimming in the local river and to steal cakes from the kitchen, she became skilled at getting around the adults and a dab hand at lieing and bullying the other children into doing what she wanted. However, as she got older her magical nature started to become more pronounced than simply strange visions or seeing ghosts. As her gifted nature started to become more and more apparent, her ability to manipulate others started to fail her. The locals started to see her less as a cute little girl and more as something unnatural and fey. Fortunately for Melisande though, before things could get more than unpleasant for her, a passing mage spotted her and realised her potential as an apprentice. 1204-1218, Apprenticeship Hironius ex Guernicus was the magus who took Melisande away from her childhood home to her new one, Covenant Corvus, on the coast of Northumberland and gave her the new name of Mnemosyne. During her years of apprenticeship she learnt the usual things an apprentice does. However, more importantly, her parens instilled in her a keen logical drive - taming the wildness of her early days. This in turn helped her accept the principles of law of honesty which Hironius expouted. As she grew older, Mnemosyne started to attract attention. Attention she found unpleasant. In the same fashion, when she found herself attracted to another apprentice she was rubuffed, rudely. These experiences, coupled with an ever deeping interest in the mind, pushed her away from making personal relationships which would turn sour. Eventually, this would become a strong aversion to physicallity. During her apprenticeship, Corvus steadily declined from Autumn into Winter. The two young men who were apprenticing at the covenant at the same time never finished their years - both dieing. One magus was killed in certemen in the finale of an old fued while another dissappeared totally, and after several years had to be presumed dead. A viking attack decimated the coven folk and Corvus lost many of its resources - but fortunately, Mneomosyne and her parens were away at the time and survived unscathed. Then finally over the last few years of her apprenticeship, Hironius started succumbing quickly to wizard's twilight, apparently the result of a series of bad longevity potions. 1219 After she passed her gauntlet, Mnemosyne decided that she no longer wished to have any part of Corvus and began to think of a covenant which was not in winter. After a bit of time came to the conclusion that if she were going to start afresh, it would be best to start completely so with a spring covenant. So, between spending time on her arcane studies she spent her final year at Corvus, Mnemosyne began organising her resources and making contacts with the view to founding a new covenant.